1From George Washington to Sarah Franklin Bache, 15 January 1781 (Washington Papers)
I should have done myself the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the letter you did me the favor to write on the 26th of December, at the moment it came to hand, had not some affairs of a very unusual Nature (which are too recent and notorious to require explanation) engaged my whole attention —I pray you now to be perswaded, that a sense of the patriotic exertions of yourself, and the Ladies...